University of Manchester urges prioritising woodland creation

The University of Manchester (UoM) has published a report through Policy@Manchester stating that woodland creation should be made a priority

The report, written by Dr Matthew Dennis, Senior Lecturer in Geographical Information Science, highlights that policymakers should “prioritise woodland creation protocols aimed at nature recovery and tailored to the context of restoration rather than simply based on opportunistic land acquisition.”

UK woodland cover is dwindling

Dr Dennis’ article states that UK woodland cover stands at around 14.5%, while the European average is around 40%.

Furthermore, one of the biggest debates in land conservation at the moment is whether large areas of woodland are needed to effectively protect habitats, or whether smaller but more numerous pockets will be just as effective, while providing more land for humans.

Research will be key to future woodland creation

Dr Dennis cites research at UoM in progressing how woodland creation policy should be handled: “Specifically, we looked at woodland mammals as this group is particularly sensitive to habitat loss and fragmentation. When we looked at these species, we found that in areas of the Northern Forest landscape that are dominated by grassland, or whenever cover by urban or arable land-use was low, the bigger, better, more-joined up approach did not perform as well as expected.

“Another key finding of our study was the strongly homogenising effect of arable land-use.  We found that, as cover by arable land-use increased, overall land-cover diversity reduced, along with mammalian species richness.

“Within such contexts, a range of woodland creation options should be employed and opportunistic acquisition of land for reforestation should not be the only consideration in restoration schemes.

“Instead, restoration should be led by the landscape context. For example, in grassland landscapes, opportunistic planting of new woodland may be appropriate and woodland increase of any size and shape ought to be encouraged.  In more hostile contexts, such as where urbanisation is high, resources should be directed at large and well-connected woodland patches, otherwise nature recovery efforts may be wasted.”